The Hub of my grief...

Late last summer I did the 24 Hours of Great Glen mountain bike race with some of the good folks at MRC. It was a great time, if not wet. It's been great to get back on the trails more the last two years because that's where my passion for bikes began. Amethyst Brook in Amherst, MA, senior year in college on a borrowed rigid hardtail is how this affair all started...



In any event, once upon a time I was an absolute bear about maintaining my mountain bike...these days, not so much. It probably doesn't help that my bike is older than my marriage, and parts are tough to come by. But being the rather frugal yankee I'm trying like hell to keep this limping along. A fancy 29er or full suspension rig just ain't in the budget this year.



As it turns out, I really should have done a better job of cleaning my bike after Great Glen last year....I didn't and one of the cartridge bearings in my circa 1996 Hugi/Coda rear hub has completely seized....

That's about 14 years of trail grime built in there....the seal really wasn't sealing anything at all! I really can't remember if I've seen a sealed bearing actually seize. I mean that inner race has ZERO movement in it! While the other bearing seems to be in terrific shape, it looks like I can get both of them for about 40 bucks shipped. Considering what they are that seems expensive, but assuming I can figure out to press these back into the hub body, it's cheaper than a whole new rear hub. Plus I have been taking a certain amount of pride in keeping this old steed still bouncing off the rocks and roots...

Now if I can just get that god-damned creaking sound out of the bottom bracket (yep, an old White Industries Ti square-taper beauty, same vintage...), all will be well!

Dave at Fenway review....

Have been an ardent fan of Dave Matthews since my senior year in college and have been making it a "guy outing" every year. The last few have been at Great Woods, so it's been a fun tailgating type event. This year however, they're doing the double at Fenway, so the tailgate turned into a mini pub crawl. We decided to start up in Allston at some old hangouts and make our way down to Kenmore Square, keeping in mind that pretty much everything right around Kenmore would be mobbed. The plan worked out really well - we had a beer and food at the Sunset Grill, then stopped at the White Horse.

Then moved further down the road to the other place that Sunset owns near BU (forget the name)...Hugh had joined us at this point making for a quartet of silliness for the afternoon. Steve decided that we ought to start exploring 10% beer in a can (all set for this kid, thanks!), which laid the foundation for...well, for nothing good frankly.

then finally shot down to the House of Blues across the street from Fenway (that's it in the background). Though there was a bit of a line, we had a good time hanging out and revelling with other Lansdowne partiers...

Then we went into the park to see the show....we weren't exactly sure where our seats were at first, but got pretty excited, pretty quickly!

5th row, pretty much center!!!

What a Setlist these guys threw down:

Nanta

Rapunzel

Alligator Pie

Don't Drink...Seven

Gravedigger

So Damn Lucky

Funny the Way it is...

Nancies

Why I am

Spaceman

41

R and R

Squirm

Crush

Time Bomb

Two Step

Encore: Dirty Water and Stay

Simply an AMAZING SHOW!

After the show we decided on some late night eats (definitely due in part to the aforementioned canned beer silliness....). This one is after Guy consumed the biggest double burger concoction I've ever seen....must have been two lbs of meat alone!

Steve followed that "show" up with this lovely display...

I know everyone has an opinion when it comes to music, but as a lifelong fan of the "Jam Band" genre, there aren't many that I enjoy as much as DMB. The Allman Bros. are probably my all-time favorite closely followed by the Dead, Phish, and Widespread. Then there are the "not as commercially well-known offerings from moe., Stringcheese, Dispatch, etc. But Dave is just a fantastic feel good show and the crowd is generally really cool. The only shows that I can think of that I'd classify as somewhat dissappointing were the two that I traveled to in Charlottesville, VA. My brother and sister-in-law were there for her MBA at UVa, so the trip was fun nonetheless. And considering that DMB got their start there, we figured it would be a lights out show. They weren't, and in fact the band seemed pretty tired and ready for a break. But other than that, I guess I'd consider myself pretty lucky.